Why planes crash and how the NTSB can get it wrong.

General Aviation (GA) covers everything from small private planes and medevac helicopters to crop dusters and business jets. Year after year, this segment of aviation suffers more than 1,000 accidents. Some are as minor as scraping a wing, but far too many are crashes. They kill 300 to 400 people a year and injure many others. Many of these are the fault of pilots whose overconfidence, lack of skill or momentary inattention get them into mortal trouble. Aggressive safety reminders to pilots helped bring down the general aviation accident rate until the improvement stalled in the late 1990s. rnThe USA Today has found NTSB probes were skimpy for small-aircraft crashes. The paper’s investigative series "Unfit for Flight" showed that accidents are also the preventable result of airplane defects or manufacturing lapses that federal agencies charged with airline safety could do much more to identify and fix, not just pilot error. The NTSB, however, is quick to blame pilots for most accidents. But the agency's investigations of general aviation accidents can be cursory, and the inquiries sometimes rely on manufacturers to say whether something they made played a role. rnSubsequent lawsuits have revealed that some pilots were done in by safety defects or design errors that manufacturers had denied or covered up. The USA Today found 21 court verdicts ordering manufacturers cleared by the NTSB to pay nearly $1 billion after juries found their products contributed to accidents. rnThe NTSB's heavy focus on what causes aircraft to crash can obscure why pilots and passengers die, or are badly injured, in accidents they might have survived. For example, evidence existed for years that fuel tanks on the Robinson R-44 helicopter could rupture and cause fatal fires in otherwise survivable accidents. rnA documentary film examines 2006 Indiana plane crash that killed 5 people. The film "Invisible Sky" looks at the mysteries on the foggy late night of April 20, 2006. Not only how a small plane crashed near the Bloomington, Ind., airport, claiming the lives of its pilot and all four of her friends on board, all in their 20s. But also how federal investigators may have missed a possible cause: a second airplane. Could it be that Georgina Joshi, a 24-year-old opera student from South Bend, had to suddenly evade a second plane that was trying to land on another runway in the difficult flying conditions? Could it explain the fact that Georgina's plane didn't suffer underbelly damage from trees, raising doubts about the investigators' finding that she'd flown too low and ran into trees? rnIn 52 minutes, the film pieces together a case for key evidence that Georgina's father, Yatish Joshi, and fellow producers claim, the NTSB had missed. They argue that it's an example of a federal agency that sets the gold standard for commercial flights but that lacks the resources to fully investigate crashes among small, private planes and, thereby, foster safety. Yatish wants the public to pressure Congress to grant more funding for the NTSB and to make it clearer to whom the board is accountable, especially in "general aviation," which covers small planes, farm aircraft and medical helicopters. rnYatish said the film is one element out of more than $1 million spent to also hire a private crash investigator and file a legal appeal of the NTSB's findings that, ultimately, the U.S. Supreme Court refused to hear. The court found that the NTSB is an independent agency, not subject to oversight by the courts or Congress. rnOut of about 1,000 small-plane crashes each year, a fifth of them are fatal, the NTSB has reported. In the film, Yatish cites how the agency blames 86% of those accidents on pilots. "How can this be?" he questions. "Invisible Sky" can be rented or purchased on Apple TV, Amazon, Google Play and InDemand cable providers. To learn more visit invisibleskyfilm.com. Related Links:rnPlane crashrnAviation lawrnKevin NealrnHelicopter Crashrnairplane accident lawyerrnplane crash attorneyrnaviation accident lawyerrnairplane accident attorneyrnplane crash lawyerrnaviation lawyerrnaccording to the laws of aviationrnaccording to all laws of aviationrnemergency landingsrnwhat are the three main types of emergency landingsrnforced landingrnprecautionary landingrnditching landingrnditchingrnemergency landing Videos: https://youtu.be/S4MQqSACpzo Embed Info 1: (https://www.siegemedia.com/embed-code-generator)

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